Project Lore

Before Burning Crusade hit the shelves, the raiding scene was very different. Raiding guilds would quickly abandon earlier raids like Molten Core once most items were being disenchanted and they wanted to spend more time progressing through new content. Since there was no value in running an easy raid and well-established guilds could just as easily run harder instances with a few ungeared players in their 40 man raid group to gear them up faster, Molten Core and all the level 60 dungeons fell into oblivion.

Blizzard sought to change this in Burning Crusade. First, they introduced heroic dungeons, which offered all of the new 5-man dungeons with better gear drops and more difficult mobs. Additionally, all heroics dropped Badges of Justice, which were exchangeable for gear that was on par with raid gear. As more content as released, they wanted to keep heroics relevant. The solution was to add even better rewards for badges at the requirement of many more badges. Eventually, as Karazhan and Zul'Aman became PUGed more often than arranged, they added badges to them so that they stayed relevant to veteran players. Badge gear on par with some of the best raid drops would cost on the order of 150 badges, equaling dozens of heroics for a single piece, but players continued to run heroics.

In WotLK, Blizzard adjusted this system slightly. With the introduction of achievements, heroics would have "hard modes", which would make heroics relevant and difficult to even seasoned players. Every raid has the same system as well, with a normal "10 man" version and a heroic "25 man" version. More importantly, Blizzard introduced a multiple tiered "badge" system. Heroics and the easiest raids, Naxxramas and Vault of Archavon, drop the first tier of badges, called Emblems of Heroism. These are exchangeable for entry-level raid gear. Harder raids drop Emblems of Valor, which are exchangeable for better raid gear. It was inadvertently announced in a post about PvP that a new tier of emblems is to be introduced in patch 3.1: Emblems of Conquest.

One of the announcements that startled some players was that Ulduar would drop Emblems of Valor on normal mode and Emblems of Conquest on Heroic mode. The reason this didn't sit well with some players is that they view Ulduar on the same level of difficulty as existing raid content. Most players agree that raid content is much easier than it was in Burning Crusade and earlier and want it to be more difficult. The hardcore raiders have no use for Emblems of Heroism and their Emblems of Valor are looking to be barely useful already, and with the introduction of Emblems of Conquest and heroic Ulduar, Emblems of Valor will likely be less valued than ever.

A common request is that emblems should be exchangeable at some fixed rate. For example, an emblem of valor could be bought with 5 emblems of heroism. Blizzard does not want to implement this because they want players who want better gear to play harder instances rather than farm easy ones. They don't want raiding to be a grind. Perhaps a better solution is to make existing emblem gear cheaper as new content is released. Then, that shiny 50 emblem sword might cost 20 emblems instead of 50 in later patches, and you've had an incentive to run a few heroics instead of just getting the next tier up.

Another problem is the distinction of PvP gear. Right now, raiders can buy PvP gear with emblems. Without even setting foot in a battleground or arena, they can buy some of the best PvP gear in the game. While PvE players should have access to PvP gear, it shouldn't be that easy to obtain. Rating requirements might be required in patch 3.1 for the best PvP gear, even if you buy with emblems.

The main reason emblems are important as far as a mechanic is that they mark which raids are on what "tier". Here is a list of what raids drop what kinds of emblems. Dungeons in the same grouping have similar drops.

Emblem of Heroism	Naxxramas (normal)	Used for Heirloom items, iLevel 200 items, Savage Gladiator
	Vault of Archavon (normal)
	Obsidian Sanctum (normal)
	Eye of Eternity (normal)
Emblem of Valor	Naxxramas (heroic)	Used for iLevel 213 items, Hateful Gladiator
	Vault of Archavon (heroic)
	Obsidian Sanctum (heroic)
	Eye of Eternity (heroic)
	Ulduar (normal)
Emblem of Conquest	Ulduar (heroic)	Used for the next tier of raid drops, Deadly Gladiator

I personally think that this is a good design philosophy. I didn't get to see most of Black Temple or Sunwell because I couldn't spend enough time playing to raid that much. With all of the content being accessible in normal mode to all players but still having rewarding hard modes, the greatest amount of players are satisfied.

What do you think? Is the emblem system working? Should 10-man content stay easy and 25-man be made hard or should everything be made difficult?